BRASÍLIA – President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil called dozens of foreign diplomats to the presidential palace on Monday to tell them he believes the country’s voting system could be rigged, a potential preview shows. The viability of his strategy for an election is 75 days away and polls predict he will lose in a landslide.
While Mr Bolsonaro’s presentation is not new – he has repeated those statements for years – his audience is. He invited officials from most embassies in the Brazilian capital Brasília, elevating his statements from domestic politics to foreign policy.
He has promised to share evidence of fraud in the past two presidential elections, but for the most part his 47-minute presentation, which he broadcast to the publicfocused on re-emphasizing information about the hacking of Brazil’s election agency in 2018, as well as his allegation that some Supreme Court justices were trying to sabotage his re-election bid .
“I know that you all want democratic stability in our country,” Bolsonaro said from behind the podium in front of dozens of sitting diplomats. “And that will only be achieved with transparent, trustworthy elections.”
Many diplomats at the event were shaken by the presentation, including Mr Bolsonaro’s suggestion that the way to ensure secure elections was through deeper involvement of the Brazilian military, According to two diplomats at the event, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private preservation. These diplomats are concerned that Bolsonaro is laying the groundwork for an attempt to contest the outcome of the vote should he lose.
Less than three months before the presidential election, Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to adhere to the blueprint of former President Donald J. Trump. Like Mr. Trump before the 2020 US election, Mr. Bolsonaro is trailing behind in the polls. And like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro appears to have discredited the vote before it took place in an alleged effort to increase credibility and transparency.
But Mr Bolsonaro has openly questioned the integrity of Brazil’s voting system for years, even alleging fraud in the 2018 election that landed him president. (He claimed, without clear evidence, that he would have won a larger sum if there had been no fraud.)
He mainly cites circumstantial evidence, such as videos showing voting machines malfunctioning. Many of these videos have been debugged by fact checking agency and election agency.
On Monday, Mr. Bolsonaro again tampered with a 2018 breach in which hackers gained months-long access to the internal systems of Brazil’s election agency. Bolsonaro said the hack had put the nation’s voting system in question, but election officials dismissed his concerns.
He also claimed that the Brazilian federal police “in the course of their investigation said that hackers could change the names of candidates, take the vote of one candidate and send it to the other”. But Brazil’s electoral authority says that’s wrong.
The agency says that hackers, who accessed the agency’s systems during the October 2018 election, were able to change information about candidates and parties for a municipal election next year. there, but they do not change votes or interfere with electronic voting machines. not connected to the internet. Investigate also shows that the hacker has gained access machine source code and voter’s personal data. But the agency said hackers could not access voting machines or change vote totals.
The agency – led by the Supreme Court justices themselves, whom Mr Bolsonaro claims are politically affiliated against him – on Monday released a 20-point fact-check of the claims. Bolsonaro and sent to diplomats after his speech.
The federal police chief investigator into the hack also testified before the Supreme Court that the investigation found no evidence of fraud in the 2018 election.
Diego Aranha, a Brazilian computer scientist who scrutinized Brazil’s voting systemssaid that while the 2018 hack showed that the country’s election security could be improved, it did not threaten the integrity of the election because hackers were unable to alter votes or infiltrate voting machines. promissory note.
Several embassies in Brasília, including the US Embassy, declined to comment or did not respond to messages late Monday. Pietro Lazzeri, Switzerland’s ambassador to Brazil, said on Twitter“We wish to the Brazilian people that the next elections will be a celebration of democracy and other institutions.”
Officials from the United States and Europe have said they have confidence in Brazil’s electoral system. President Biden emphasized the importance of respecting democratic institutions during his meeting with Bolsonaro in June.
At the end of Mr Bolsonaro’s speech on Monday, there was a brief pause as he stood before the audience. Several members of the president’s assembled cabinet were quick to applaud. Several diplomats then politely clapped their hands.
